Marina Dyachenko - The Scar

“You’ll return home,” said Fagirra without any expression on his face. “You have a decrepit father and an ill mother in a little town called Kavarren.”

“What do you want to accuse Toria of?” Egert repeated, almost soundlessly.

“Yes, she is beautiful. She is too beautiful, Egert. She will bring you misery. She was the reason, albeit indirectly, for the death of her first fiancé, that man you—”

“How do you—?”

“—that man you killed. She is not like other women; there is something in her.… A gift, I would call it a gift, Egert. An exceptional woman. I understand what you are feeling right now.”

“She is innocent,” Egert spoke into Fagirra’s eyes, which were twinkling in the gloom. “What do you accuse her of?”

Fagirra averted his eyes. “Of necromantic acts that resulted in the Plague.”

The walls did not collapse, and the earth did not tremble. The flame continued to wreath the resinous top of the torch, and the silver threads that adorned the empty armchair in the corner gleamed.

“I don’t understand,” Egert said helplessly. But he had understood, and immediately.

Fagirra sighed. “So try to understand. There are some things that are more valuable than mere life and simple, worldly justice. A sacrifice is always innocent, otherwise how is he or she a sacrifice? A sacrifice is always better than the crowd surrounding the altar.”

“Fagirra,” said Egert in a whisper. “Don’t do this.”

His companion shook his head dejectedly. “I understand. But I have no other alternative. Someone must carry the punishment for the Plague.”

“The guilty should.”

“Toria is guilty. She is a malevolent sorceress, the daughter of Dean Luayan,” Fagirra responded levelly. “And think on this, Egert. It is within my power to make you an accomplice, but you are no more than a witness. Do you realize how close you’ve come to the abyss in these last few days?”

Egert clenched his teeth, waiting for a dreary wave of fear.

Fagirra touched his knee with his hand. “But you are just a witness, Egert. And your testimony will carry weight because you love the defendant, but for the sake of truth you must repudiate your love.”

“For the sake of truth?”

Fagirra stood; a long, dark shadow grew on the wall. He walked over to the armchair and leaned his elbows on the backrest. In the torchlight he seemed like an old man.

“What awaits her?” Egert’s unruly lips asked.

Fagirra raised his eyes. “Why do you want to know how she will die? Return to your Kavarren immediately after the judgment. I don’t think you’ll be all that happy, but time draws in even such wounds.”

“I will not be a witness against Toria!” bellowed Egert before the fear had a chance to squeeze shut his jaw.

Fagirra shook his head. He shook his head, thinking about something, then nodded to Egert. “Get up. Come with me.”

At first his numbed legs refused to work; Egert stood on the second attempt. Fagirra drew a jangling ring of keys from the depths of his robe. A narrow iron door stood in a dark corner, and beyond it a steep, winding staircase led below.

A short, broad-shouldered man in baggy clothes was picking his teeth with a lath. The appearance of Fagirra and Egert caught him unawares, and he almost swallowed his toothpick as he sprang forward to meet the robed man. Taking the torch from Fagirra’s hand, he walked in front of them, cringing, while Egert tried to remember where he had seen him before. Egert’s speculations came to an end when their escort obsequiously flung open a squat door with a meshed window.

Two or three torches burned here already, and in their light Egert could see ugly torture devices, which could only have been conceived by a fiend of hell, staring at him from their places on the stone walls.

He halted, instantly feeling weak. Fagirra supported him with an exact, efficient movement, firmly taking his arm just above the elbow. Instruments untouched by rust, kept in full readiness, hung on hooks and lay on shelves in heaps: pliers and drills, knee splitters and thumbscrews, boards studded with spikes, cat o’ nine tails, and other abominable things, from which Egert quickly averted his eyes. Among the instruments of torture crouched a brazier, full of banked coals. Nearby stood a three-legged stool and an armchair with a high back, exactly the same as the one left behind in that small, empty cell. Egert’s darting eyes discerned a worn wooden trundle with dangling loops of chain that rested on a short raised platform.

He now remembered where he had seen the broad-shouldered master of the torture devices. On the Day of Jubilation he had ascended the scaffold together with the magistrate and the convicted men. Then, an ax had been in his hand, and he had held it just as unpretentiously as he now routinely and expertly blew on the coals in the brazier.

“Egert,” Fagirra asked quietly, still holding him by his arm, “where is that gold bauble located: the medallion that belongs to the dean?”

The coals changed from black to crimson; the executioner would have made an excellent fire-stoker. Egert began to wheeze, trying to utter even one word.

“You remember, I once asked you about his safe. Our people searched the dean’s study and found nothing. Where is the medallion now, do you know?”

Egert said nothing, but on the edges of his consciousness, befuddled by terror, thoughts smoldered. Sacrilege. The study, the steel wing … they profaned it. Dean Luayan, where are you?

“Egert.” Fagirra peered into his eyes. “I am very interested in the answer to this question. Believe me, the screams of the tortured afford me no pleasure. Where is it?”

“I don’t know,” said Egert soundlessly, but the robed man read his words from his lips.

He slowly and eloquently shifted his gaze from Egert to the executioner and from the executioner to the brazier. Then he sighed, rubbing the corner of his mouth. “You’re not lying to me, Egert, are you? I would not believe any other man, but you, well … It’s too bad, but if you really don’t know.” Fagirra lowered his hand. “Toria knows, doesn’t she?”

Egert nearly fell. Not knowing what he was doing, he tried to sit down on the trundle with the chains and staggered back. Fagirra gently pushed him into the armchair, and Egert, unable to keep his feet, slammed the back of his head against its high wooden back. His hands clawed at the armrests with a deathlike grip.

The executioner looked inquiringly at Fagirra, who snapped at him wearily, “Wait a minute!”

He pulled the three-legged stool over in front of Egert and sat down, carpeting the floor with the folds of his robe.

“I repeat: I sympathize with you, Egert. I’ll keep no secrets from you. The law describes a punishment for the refusal to testify or for false witness: Those who commit this crime are immediately chastened by having their lying tongues ripped out. Show him the pliers.” He turned to the executioner.

Measuring Egert with the gaze of an experienced tailor, the executioner darted to a corner and pulled from a clattering pile an instrument that, in his opinion, would do the trick. Grease glistened on the curved blades of the pliers. The executioner was masterful and precise in his work, and he had even adapted the long handles of the pliers for a special use: they were as sharp as two enormous awls.

Egert squeezed his eyes and lips shut.

“That won’t help,” sighed Fagirra in the darkness that was closing in around Egert. “It will do you no good to be childish. This is life, Egert. All sorts of things happen, regardless of whether or not you shut your eyes. Fine, don’t look. It isn’t really necessary. The trial will convene, in all likelihood, the day after tomorrow. We will keep an eye on you, and make sure you come to it. I don’t have to tell you that it is not a good idea to run away, do I? No, you understand. And after this is all over, if you need some money for the road to Kavarren, I will lend it to you. You can return it to me when you get there. Are we clear?”